Timing

John 4: 1-3

“Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—  although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.”

In this passage, Jesus is told that the Pharisees were aware that he was gaining a following. Jesus then leaves Judea and goes back to Galilee. This passage raises a number of questions about what Jesus was doing and why.

John’s Gospel begins with a view of creation as a whole. He starts out, “in the beginning…” If John’s Gospel were a movie, we would expect the camera’s view to include the black expanse that existed before there was light and then with the introduction of the first few words we would see all that we know come into existence.

John’s camera view then takes us to the Word becoming flesh, and we are then moved quickly to the view of John the Baptist, herald of the coming Messiah. We know from the text (John 1:28) that this happened near Bethany on the Jordan River. In Chapter 1, after gathering a few disciples, Jesus leaves for Galilee (John 1:43) where we see him at a wedding turning water into wine (John 2:1-11) and then a few verses later he is back in Jerusalem (John 2:13). In the next passages, he clears the temple courts (John 2:13-25) and then talks with Nicodemus (John 3:1-21).

Clearly, John’s narrative is a thumbnail sketch! He shows us vignettes of key points in his gospel story. Each picture leads us to a better understanding of who Jesus is. At this point in John’s story, it seems that Jesus’ ministry is just starting to make progress. People are coming to him to be baptized, and the Pharisees are taking note of his success. So he leaves Judea and heads back to Galilee in the north. Why?

Q: Based on what you know of John’s gospel, why would Jesus leave his ministry in Judea to go back north, through Samaria, to Galilee?